The Utah Transit Authority may also receive funding for several projects: commuter rail from Ogden to Provo, light rail to the airport and South Jordan and for construction of the 9400 South TRAX station.

If the bill is passed, it could provide complete funding for the Weber to Salt Lake City portion of commuter rail.

"It's not guaranteed, but it gives us a license to hunt," said UTA spokesman Justin Jones. "It puts us in a position to compete with other transit agencies for the funding. It's a good step, we like being in this position, but on the other hand, it's not a guarantee for money."

The Senate now must work out its differences with the House-passed bill, which in addition to approving less money specifies thousands of specific projects requested by lawmakers, from bike paths to sidewalks to parking lots. Almost all of the Senate money is divided among the states by a complicated formula.

Senators said they had found new revenue sources, such as eliminating tax abuses, that would allow them to add $11 billion to the House bill without adding to the federal deficit. The White House discounted the Senate steps as accounting gimmicks.

In addition to granting money to states to repair and build roads and bridges, the bill provides more than $50 billion for public transit, funds recreational road programs and promotes highway safety.

The Senate vote was in some ways a repeat of last year, when the senators approved a bill well above what the White House deemed affordable. In the end no compromise was reached with Congress, and lawmakers have had to pass six temporary extensions of the old six-year act, which expired on Sept. 30, 2003.

With 20 months gone since the last highway bill, there is growing pressure to come up with a compromise. The latest extension runs out on May 31.

The legislation funds many relatively small programs — bike routes to schools, covered bridges, ferry terminals — as well as programs to promote fuel-efficient vehicles and authorize tolls to finance new interstate lanes.

Sen. Maria Cantwell, D-Wash., won approval of an amendment that would require the Environmental Protection Agency to update fuel economy testing to reflect real-life driving conditions. Gas mileage stickers on new cars now inflate true fuel economy performance by 10 percent to 30 percent.

The Senate also confirmed, in a vote Tuesday, a provision that would increase grants for safety programs to states that allow police to stop motorists who don't wear seat belts even when there is no other traffic violation.

The House bill, unlike the Senate version, includes some 4,000 specific projects, worth some $12 billion, that were requested by lawmakers for their districts.